Chimera

"For every hero, there must exist a villain". Don't know why, but suddenly this line came to my mind today. Took me a while to figure out where I had heard it, and then it struck me as being all the more odd that I should have suddenly recalled it, because I saw the movie only once, and that was years ago, when it was released (and I was very disappointed with it, like all fans of the first part).

Anyway, the more I ponder on it, the truer it seems actually, and the way we live this line, seems to explain a lot of things around us that at different times frustrate, delight, depress and occassionally just occupy our time. Yeah, we're all a bunch of hypocrites deep down. Like, you bitch about others being "bitches". Seems odd when put that way, but think about it and I think each one of us would have to admit that it's the truth.....we've all done something like that at some time or the other....

And that's exactly where this fact comes in. All of us need someone or something to hate. It's life. Everyone has a set of beliefs and notions. Furthermore, each of us has illusions that we deem to be real, to be true, and to be the definitive rules by which we live our lives. One of these is the notion of heroism. Why do movies appeal to us? Mind you, I am not mentioning any particular movie, it could be any! Why do "real-life heroes" as the press calls them, appeal to us? Because somewhere deep down, we want to be them or emulate them, or at times, somewhere we like to feel that they are just reflections of us......that we're the same or would be the same, just that circumstances played into their hands and not ours.....

But you can't really believe in "good" without there being "bad". I mean, who would Bruce Wayne be if there was no crime in Gotham City? So it is with everything. And so it is, with day-to-day life. We like to think of ourselves and those we like as "right" or "good". We're the heroes in our eyes. We're the ones that live right, that think right......that are right!!!!

But to justify this, inevitably, there have to be the others.....those that are everything we are not....the "villains". We create them. We perceive them all around us. And we hate admitting to ourselves that we could be wrong. I'm not talking now about forming "impressions" about people. We do that anyway. But we also decide who's the "bad guy". I can honestly say, that as much as I may pride myself on being "objective" and trying to be "unbiased" when I interact with people I don't know, once I decide a person is one of the "others", there's hardly anything anyone can say or do, to convince me otherwise. It's all subconscious, but it happens.....and it almost never strikes us that this is what is happening....

You don't consciously think of people as "villains". You just call them "assholes", "weirdoes", "pseudos", "wastes".....whatever......but you do.....

Sample this conversation. God knows how many times I have heard this being said....and heck, almost all of us have probably said something like this at some time or the other....or done something like that and justified it to ourselves like this...

"He's such an asshole. Know what he did yesterday? He blah-blah blah..."
"Chuck it dude. He is like that. Why bitch?"
"I'm not bitching....He really did that...and I just found it totally screwed up....so I told you..."

Yeah....we all need a villain...and let's face it. What's the harm? Life would just be so damn boring without them. After all, whom would we compare ourselves with? Whom would we look at to feel good about ourselves? Oh, and a rider....this "villain" doesn't have to be someone else....very often, it's your own self....happens with me all the time....it could be a facet, or the past.....or the voice within.....

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"What's happening?"
"Nothing..."
"That's the problem, isn't it?"
"Yeah..."
"It always is..."

How true....